This invention relates to display packages for video cassettes and compact discs, useful in indexing and arranging titles and descriptive information available for review and selection by customers in the environment of a video rental and sales store. The invention also relates to a method for efficient organization of displays in such stores.
Video cassettes and compact discs are normally packaged by the manufacturer in oversized boxes, and these boxes have become of substantial value to retail rental and sales storekeepers because the packages contain descriptive information concerning the contents of the cassette or disc, and consumers find these packages essential in making a selection of a video or disc for rental or purchase. These packages are usually oversized to make it difficult for the potential shoplifter to remove the product from the store without being detected. However, the condition of the package has also become important, because the wholesale distributor usually will not accept return of the product without the package clean and in tact; it is also believed that the cassette or disc cannot be sold or rented at the best possible price if the package is damaged, missing or soiled. For these reasons, most video store operators are very protective of the manufacturer's packaging and are concerned with maintaining such packages clean and unsoiled, although the business requires that the packages be available to the public for use in selecting a tape or disc for rental or purchase. It is that dilemma of the storekeepers who want to make these packages available for use by the consumer but retain them in good condition, that this invention speaks and seeks to solve.
Usually, in a typical video store such packages prepared and supplied by the cassette or disc manufacturer (as the outside jacket of his product) are arranged on a shelf or wall display in the store. Where the retailer maintains an inventory of several thousand prerecorded cassette and compact discs, the space problem for the store is magnified by the display requirements. Such a store usually must have several thousand square feet to meet the display space requirements, eventhough the inventory requirement for the store is very small, because the cassettes and discs can be handled in a fraction of the total store space.
These display problems are even more critical in view of variations in the manufacturer's package size and design utilized by different makers. There is considerable competition for display space, and each manufacturer tries to make its display package more enticing to the consumer, and that motive makes it even more difficult for the storekeeper to present an organized and convenient display arrangement. Further, some cassettes are available for Beta video cassette recorders and others use a VHS system, and each maker and system present quirks in the sizing and styling of the display boxes, emphasizing the need for a most versatile display system
These problems in maintaining and using conventional display packages for video cassettes and compact discs may be substantially overcome by the display package and method embodying the present invention. For example, a wall display shelving system popular in the video store business utilizing convention display packages and methods requires about 260 square feet, or 32 lineal feet, eight feet tall, to handle about 1,000 video cassette and/or compact disc titles, and evenso, some display packages are too high for examination by short people, women and children, and other display packages are arranged on floor level shelves, making it difficult for some people to reach them. Using the novel display system embodying the present invention, only a small fraction of the store space is needed for display of the same thousand titles, usually about only six square feet, all at counter height convenient for most people to use.
Moreover, applicant's novel display system opens up to the entrepreneur possibilities not available with prior art systems. More titles can be handled in the same space. Space rentals on a per title offered basis are substantially less. Better and more convenient store locations are possible using less square footage. Other opportunities to handle related merchandise become available using applicant's system, for example, businesses such as convenience and drug stores, supermarkets and the like with applicant's system have the opportunity of marketing video cassettes and compact discs, without causing special space problems normally associated with the use of conventional displays.
Applicant's display package consists of a special clear plastic envelope of sufficient dimension to contain most known video cassettes and compact disc display boxes. This novel envelope is constructed so that it is adequately rigid to be arranged upstanding in a display bin, but it is also suitably soft to permit easy entrance in and withdrawal from the envelope of the manufacturer's display package box and other indicia. The envelope also has seals and stops to permit the manufacturer's package box to be somewhat lifted so that the envelop contents can be easily read as the consumer flips through a number of similar envelopes arranged in a series one behind the other in a bin. Preferably, each envelope has suitable pockets for holding a heading having indicia classifying the program contents, as well as other pockets for inventory and similar information. It is desirable for the envelopes and a suitable bin for holding them to be dimensioned so that the bin can also suitably house the envelopes during shipment and then be used by the retailer as a container for housing indexed envelopes for use by customers browsing for their video cassette or compact disc selections.
The display package embodying the present invention is even more versatile if constructed with pockets in a manner to easily accommodate category and inventory information. A novel header pocket for receiving category or similar information is constructed in a manner where, without interfering with the indicia receiving envelope, it can receive the desired data, and will not be dislodged during handling or browsing, by the providing of heat seal tabs reducing the entry width of the pocket compartment. Also, similar tabs are provided for lower pockets intended to contain inventory information, but it is desired that the height of these lower pockets also be relatively short to permit easy installing and withdrawing of an inventory card. Also, by making these pockets and heat seal tabs co-extensive with the display package edge seal seams and the stop seam, less expensive manufacturing procedures can be employed in manufacturing the product, thus providing an efficient display package at an reasonable costs.